The Memphis appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1886-1890, 1887-01-30
LEO xiii and V0LTAIRE.
SHREWDNESS OF The POPE IN
MONEY MATTERS
And His Mania for Building He
Believes In Modern Scientific
improvement.

LONDON, January 22.-The TeIe.
graph says the second article on Ro
mau society from the pen of the
writer who contributes to the Nou-
pelte ReuUe under the pseudonym OF
Count Paul Vasili is devoted to the
Pope and the Vatican. As an Eu-
glish nobleman remarked of the ia
theirs of the Church, it is most anus
ing reading, aud the characteristics
Of Leo XIII are hit off with the
writer's usual brilliant, if flippaut
and hasty, touch. Joachim Pecci is
not, We are told, by any means a
Voltairean either in mind or in feat
ure. Jealous country Wears or for
eign ecclesiastics have called him
Pope Voltaire, while photographers
have represented him with that ,of-
fling smile which was peculiar to the
clever philosopher of Ferney. Moth
ing, however, is more absurd than to
compare the sovereign pontiff to the
great enemy of Christianity, whom
he surpasses in politics at least. The
Pope is solemn and noble in appear
ance, his extreme thinness giving a
character of asceticism to his face.
His language is choice, and lifts the
most ordinary subject from the
level of platitude or common.
place. While defending the Pope
IRON the charge of avarice, the writ.
er does not forget to point cut that,
while Pho Mono distributed aims
with lavish hand, Leo XIII seems
to weigh every scudo which he be-
slows upon the poor. He cannot be
accused of using the Church funds
for the benefit of his relatives, as he
only gave Camille Pecco, his favorite
nephew, a sum oG his marriage
which the son of an opulent grocer
would despise. The revenues are
comparatively meager. They accrue
from the capital left in the papal
treasury by Pho Mono, from the do
nations of the faithful, known as Pc
ter's pence, from the sale of titles,
decorations and religious privileges,
ana from numerous ecclesiastical fees
and stipends. The Pope is not too
much absorbed in ETHEREAL matters
to be Indifferent to advantageous
speculation. He subscribes to Ital-
ian loans, but buys his securities on
the best terms, and, being thor
oughly practical man, safely lodges
his profits in good old British con-
soils. But, ike mad King Lud-
wig of Bavaria, the sovereign
pontiff has a mania for build
ing. He has spent large sums on
pomp and decorations, for the pur-
pose, as Count Paul Vasili observes,
of angling the English and Ameri-
cans. He has restored the covering
of Michael Angeles cupola. and near
it he has caused a tablet to be placed
with the inscription, Leo XIII,
Pope" This, says the Count, whose
own knowledge OF the past is not al
ways remarkable for its depth or ac-
curacy, will make English tourists
think that Michael Angelo was a
contemporary Of Leo XIII, and not
Leo X. Unlike his predecessors,
who.imprisoned the starry Gallileo,"
the present Pope believes in modern
scientific improvements, and has the
Vatican lit, not only with gas, but
with the electric beams of Siemens's
apparatus. There is also a hydraulic
lift in the Vatican, although it is
only used by the portly Mgr. Cataldi,
the Pope preferring to be carried
about in an old fashioned Sedan
chair. Gregory XVI, we are told,
liked Paul de kock and the fathers
OF the church more than newspapers.
Pope Leo loves the press, and has his
own journals and journalists. He
trains his reptiles, however, not like
Bismarck, to hiss and bite, but to
crawl and grovel." The writer gives
a few meager specimens of the
Pope's Latin compositions, which
are, after all, not so remarkable as
the UniUerS would have us believe.
At their best they are but limitations
of Aurelius Clemens Prudentius, one
of the first Christian poets, OF whom,
perhaps, the UniUers and Count Paul
Vasili have heard little. The con-
clusion OF the interesting article re-
fers to the Pope's theological and
political sentiments and predilec-
tons. In theology Leo XIII dis
cards the Jesuits and Rosmini, and
is heart and soul for Thomas Aquinas
and the Dominicans. In politscs the
Pope has shown himself so good
that Prince Won Bis
can, the writer thinks, refuse
him nothing. AS to the quarrel be-
tween the Vatican and the Quirinal,
they are mere family jars, which are,
however, courteously conducted but
the author of Roman Society" be-
lieves that, after one or two pontifi-
Gates like the present one, the Italian
Government and the Holy See will
rule the Catholic world together.